Overview

A CLASSIC FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

"To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales."

So wrote TheNew York Times of Tim O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars.

In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it's about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content

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Read an Excerpt

It was a bad time. Billy Boy Watkins was dead, and so was Frenchie Tucker. Billy Boy had died of fright, scared to death on the field of battle, and Frenchie Tucker had been shot through the nose. Bernie Lynn and Lieutenant Sidney Martin had died in tunnels. Pederson was dead and Rudy Chassler was dead. Buff was dead. Ready Mix was dead. They were all among the dead. The rain fed fungus that grew in the men's boots and socks, and their socks rotted, and their feet turned white and soft so that the skin could be scraped off with a fingernail, and Stink Harris woke up screaming one night with a leech on his tongue. When it was not raining, a low mist moved across the paddies, blending the elements into a single gray element, and the war was cold and pasty and rotten. Lieutenant Corson, who came to replace Lieutenant Sidney Martin, contracted the dysentery. The tripflares were useless. The ammunition corroded and the foxholes filled with mud and water during the nights, and in the mornings there was always the next village, and the war was always the same. The monsoons were part of the war. In early September Vaught caught an infection. He'd been showing Oscar Johnson the sharp edge on his bayonet, drawing it swiftly along his forearm to peel off a layer of mushy skin. "Like a Gillette Blue Blade," Vaught had said proudly. There was no blood, but in two days the bacteria soaked in and the arm turned yellow, so they bundled him up and called in a dustoff, and Vaught left the war. He never came back. Later they had a letter from him that described Japan as smoky and full of slopes, but in the enclosed snapshot Vaught looked happy enough, posing with two sightly nurses, a wine bottle rising from between his thighs. It was a shock to learn he'd lost the arm. Soon afterward Ben Nystrom shot himself through the foot, but he did not die, and he wrote no letters. These were all things to joke about. The rain, too. And the cold. Oscar Johnson said it made him think of Detroit in the month of May. "Lootin' weather," he liked to say. "The dark an' gloom, just right for rape an' lootin'." Then someone would say that Oscar had a swell imagination for a darkie.

That was one of the jokes. There was a joke about Oscar. There were many jokes about Billy Boy Watkins, the way he'd collapsed of fright on the field of battle. Another joke was about the lieutenant's dysentery, and another was about Paul Berlin's purple biles. There were jokes about the postcard pictures of Christ that Jim Pederson used to carry, and Stink's ringworm, and the way Buff's helmet filled with life after death. Some of the jokes were about Cacciato. Dumb as a bullet, Stink said. Dumb as a month-old oyster fart, said Harold Murphy.

In October, near the end of the month, Cacciato left the war.

"He's gone away," said Doc Peret. "Split, departed."

Lieutenant Corson did not seem to hear. He was too old to be a lieutenant. The veins in his nose and cheeks were broken. His back was weak. Once he had been a captain on the way to becoming a major, but whiskey and the fourteen dull years between Korea and Vietnam had ended all that, and now he was just an old lieutenant with the dysentery.

He lay on his back in the pagoda, naked except for green socks and green undershorts.

The lieutenant did not sit up. With one hand he cupped his belly, with the other he guarded a red glow. The surfaces of his eyes were moist.

"Gone to Paris," Doc said.

The lieutenant put the glow to his lips. Inhaling, his chest did not move. There were no vital signs in the wrists or thick stomach.

"Paris," Doc Peret repeated. "That's what he tells Paul Berlin, and that's what Berlin tells me, and that's what I'm telling you. The chain of command, a truly splendid instrument. Anyhow, the guy's definitely gone. Packed up and retired."

The lieutenant exhaled. Blue gunpowder haze produced musical sighs in the gloom, a stirring at the base of Buddha's clay feet. "Lovely," a voice said. Someone else sighed. The lieutenant blinked, coughed, and handed the spent roach to Oscar Johnson, who extinguished it against his toenail.

Sighing, swallowing hard, Lieutenant Corson pushed himself up and sat stiffly before a can of Sterno. He lit the Sterno and placed his hands behind the flame and bent forward to draw in heat. Outside, the rain was steady. "So," the old man said. "Let's figure this out." He gazed at the flame. "Trick is to think things clear. Step by step. You said Paree?"

"Affirm, sir. That's what he told Paul Berlin, and that's"

"Berlin?"

"Right here, sir. This one."

The lieutenant looked up. His eyes were bright blue and wet. Paul Berlin pretended to smile.

"Jeez."

"Sir?"

"Jeez," the old man said, shaking his head. "I thought you were Vaught."

"No."

"I thought he was you. How . . . how do you like that? Mixed up, I guess. How do you like that?"

"Fine, sir."

The lieutenant shook his head sadly. He held a boot to dry over the burning Sterno. Behind him in shadows was the crosslegged Buddha, smiling from its elevated stone perch. The pagoda was cold. Dank from a month of rain, the place smelled of clays and silicates and dope and old incense. It was a single square room built like a pillbox with stone walls and a flat ceiling that forced the men to stoop or kneel. Once it might have been a fine house of worship, neatly tiled and painted, but now it was junk. Sandbags blocked the windows. Bits of broken pottery lay under chipped pedestals. The Buddha's right arm was missing but the smile was intact. Head cocked, the statue seemed interested in the lieutenant's long sigh. "So. Cacciato, he's gone. Is that it?"

"There it is," Doc said. "You've got it."

Paul Berlin nodded.

"Gone to gay Paree. Am I right? Cacciato's left us in favor of Paree in France." The lieutenant seemed to consider this gravely. Then he giggled. "Still raining?"

"A bitch, sir."

"I never seen rain like this. You ever? I mean, ever?"

"No," Paul Berlin said. "Not since yesterday."

"And I guess you're Cacciato's buddy. Is that the story?"

"No, sir," Paul Berlin said. "Sometimes he'd tag along. Not really."

"Who's his buddy?"

"Nobody. Maybe Vaught. I guess Vaught was, sometimes."

"Well," the lieutenant murmured. He paused, dropping his nose inside the boot to sniff the sweating leather. "Well, I reckon we better get Mister Vaught in here. Maybe he can straighten this shit out."

"Vaught's gone, sir. He's the one"

"Mother of Mercy."

Doc draped a poncho over Lieutenant Corson's shoulders. The rain was steady and thunderless and undramatic. It was mid-morning, but the feeling was of endless dusk.

The lieutenant picked up the second boot and began drying it. For a time he did not speak. Then, as if amused by something he saw in the flame, he giggled again and blinked. "Paree," he said. "So Cacciato's gone off to gay Pareebare ass and Frogs everywhere, the Follies Brassiere." He glanced up at Doc Peret. "What's wrong with him?"

"Just dumb. He's just awful dumb, that's all."

"And he's walking. You say he's walking to gay Paree?"

"That's what he claims, sir, but you can't trust"

"Paree! Jesus Christ, does he know how far it is? I mean, does he know?"

Paul Berlin tried not to smile. "Eight thousand six hundred statute miles, sir. That's what he told meeight thousand six hundred on the nose. He had it down pretty good. Rations, fresh water, a compass, and maps and stuff."

"Maps," the lieutenant said. "Maps, flaps, schnaps." He coughed and spat, then grinned. "And I guess he'll just float himself across the ocean on his maps, right? Am I right?"

"Well, not exactly," said Paul Berlin. He looked at Doc Peret, who shrugged. "No, sir. He showed me how . . . See, he says he's going up through Laos, then into Burma, and then some other country, I forget, and then India and Iran and Turkey, and then Greece, and the rest is easy. That's what he said. The rest is easy, he said. He had it all doped out."

"In other words," the lieutenant said, and hesitated. "In other words, fuckin AWOL."

"As a fictional portrait of this war, Going After Cacciato is hard to fault, and will be hard to better."John Updike, The New Yorker

Meet the Author

TIM O’BRIEN received the 1979 National Book Award in fiction for Going After Cacciato. His other works include the Pulitzer finalist and a New York Times Book of the Century, The Things They Carried; the acclaimed novels Tomcat in Love and Northern Lights; and the national bestselling memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone. His novel In the Lake of the Woods received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was named the best novel of 1994 by Time. In 2010 he received the Katherine Anne Porter Award for a distinguished lifetime body of work and in 2012 he received the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. He was awarded the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing in 2013.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

*SPOILER ALERT* Overall I enjoyed reading Going After Cacciato and I feel anyone who is interested about war or the effects of war should read it. O'Brien intended his audience to be people interested about war or even just a more adult audience. This is because the book jumps around to almost three whole different stories which can get a little confusing at times. Also there is some suggestive language in it so it would not be recommended for younger children. As I said previously the book jumps around quite a bit to three different parts. It took me a little while to understand this but after reading a couple chapters I understood this and began to like the book even more. I also thought the book had a good ending, even if it was predictable. The final chapter is where Berlin is back to dreaming about going after Cacciato and they get really close to catching him but in the end he gets away and Berlin and his squad give up the chase. They feel there could be worse things that could have happened and think that even if it is a slim one, that he has a chance to survive on the run the rest of his life. After reading the whole book I feel that O'Brien picked a good title for the book. It is a simple one but it makes sense to what a lot of the book is about, which is going after Cacciato who is going AWOL from his unit (ultimately this is a dream). I found the whole book interesting but I found it most interesting after researching the book a little that the book was factual in that many soldiers who returned from Vietnam had strange dreams similar to Paul Berlin. The war was very traumatizing for many soldiers and some couldn't get the vision of war out of their head even when they were sleeping. Going After Cacciato does a great job of showing this and I would recommend reading it.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I absolutely loved this novel! He jumps around a bit but that's how what Tim O'Brien writes. Very descriptive and connects to the reader with his wonderful side notes. This book is packed with adventure, love, the feeling of helplessness and concern for the characters and keeps you wondering whats going to happen around the next corner. I have to admit I had to re-read a page or two, but it held my attention and made me eager to continue reading. I once &quot;hated&quot; reading and thought of it was such a boring task. After reading this book it compelled me to read more of Tim O'Brien work; so I definitely recommend this lovely piece of work to everyone.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Going After Cacciato is a novel that takes place during the Vietnam War. Although it is a ¿war story¿ there is very little to connect it back to a traditional ¿war story.¿ If you are looking for a novel bursting with with guns, bloody battles, and death you should look else where. That is not to say there are not war scenes in the novel; they just are not heavily present. Tim O¿Brien puts his traditional twist on the novel. While Paul Berlin, the main character, and the other members of his platoon travel to Paris in search of Cacciato, a solider that ran away, they face multiple events that get the reader to ponder on what is happening. Tim O¿Brien is continually keeping the reader on their toe¿s by switching the time period and perspective the novel is told from. This novel has it all from love to bloody war battles, so if you want to read a novel that has you pondering until the end, read Going After Cacciato.

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dAvIdTaYlOr

More than 1 year ago

i would recommend this book to anyone. Its such a good book, it involves everything you could imagine. I have read 3 of Tim O' Briens books and they are excellent. But this book is by far the best i have ever read.

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Guest

More than 1 year ago

An obvious classic and flawless portrayel of a highly controversial war. This book provides an interesting perspective but can at times seem repetitive.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Going After Cacciato is a great book that always keep you wondering whats next. Tim Obrien does a good job of keeping the book intresting by the main character Cacciato always doing somthing you wouldnt expect. Cacciatos squad got a big wake up call when they got the mission of going after him when he goes AWOL to Paris. When i read this book it sent me on an intresting adventure through mountains, rivers and forests with suspense lurking everywhere. Paul Berlin the squad leader going after Cacciato has tough decistions to make such as possible ruining someones love with another person to keep moving on to get Cacciato. Cacciato is on the run but his squad is on his tail throughout this adventure book. Will they get him and bring him home or will Cacciato make it to Paris.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

The piece is about a soldier 'Cacciato' who was a deserter during the Viet Nam War. There are engrossing views of the jungle and the writing is given from fear in a bewildering process. The characters displayed enormous amount of courage in a war that changed our history and society forever. I was exasperated by the moral lessons that we have learned in one of our most deadliest of wars. The readings evoked fear and anger with the relationships that were tried beyond limitations in a time of the unknown. I was left with a feeling of pride that when we are shaken, we are willing to embrace our relationships under extreme circumstances and pay the highest price for freedom. Did they find there was more than finding Cacciato, or was the journey eternal.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

The story is a fantastic novel to read. I have never heard of Tim O'Brien. Most of my college friends tell me that Tim O'Brien has a lot of wonderful books to choose from. He is truly a Veterna of the Vietnam War. He really told this story in way that you would have to keep u with the contrast yourself. I would reccomend anyone to read this book.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

This was my second O'brien read and going in i had high expectations and they were nothing but fulfilled. A story that apears to be another nam tale turns into an amazing adventure spread across the world. A young private flees the war and his platoon is ordered to recover him and along the way they discover themselves and eachother. In the process Cacciato becomes a loveable character and finds a place in your heart as that kid you used to be. So if you love action,heroism and much more read this book. Hoooooooooohaaaaaaaa!

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Mr. O'Brien scores yet another hit with Going After Cacciato. This time, a platoon of men heads from the battlefields of Vietnam to beautiful Paris to search for Cacciato, a soldier who has gone AWOL. This book is not just the story of a long journey, but it is also a quest of self-discovery for the main characters. O' Brien skillfully weaves emotion, adventure, and stark imagery together in one fabulous novel. This is arguably one of the best war novels ever written.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Overall the book was great. It did bounce around a little here and there but the story was great and very interesting to read.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Going After Cacciato was a descriptive novel, yet it lacked certain details. Paul Berlin's dreams and fantasies were capitvating and allowed the reader to see them clearly. The novel, however, lacked order and takes a reader of course.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I read Going After Cacciato for my English class which I chose at my own free will because war fascinates me. I was able to derive a new understanding about war, especially the Vietnam war, from this book. It was a little troubling to follow and I had to read carefully and pay attention, but it was a wonderful book nonetheless. The ending threw me off and I was confused, so I found myself searching this book review in order to understand. Wonderful book, I will be reading more from Tim O'Brien.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

I had to read this novel for my english class, and I expected it to be boring. I was drawn into the book and enjoyed it very much. I would recommend it to anyone.